New Ubisoft Video Showcases ZombiU Characters and Setting

“Ubisoft Video Showcases ZombiU Characters and Setting”

I’ll admit, it’s been a long time since I’ve been excited about a zombie survival horror game. With the genre being mined deeper than Moria but without a Balrog to keep it interesting, my eyes have tended to pass over games of that ilk for a few years now. Ubisoft’s new ZombiU, however, has broken that cycle, and for once I can genuinely say I’m excited for a piece of zombie media that isn’t by Max Brooks.

The game is a reboot of Ubisoft’s first ever commercially published game, Zombi, released for the Amstrad CPC in 1986. The player will take on the role of a survivor of a zombie plague that seems to have more of a mystical origin, as an aspect of the game will involve finding and deciphering the writings of 16th century scientist and magician John Dee, who dealt with an earlier version of the same zombie apocalypse you now have to deal with. The game takes place in 2012, and the plague is now run rampant across London where you, a survivor, have to find other survivors, survive, and find a way to end the plague for good.

Ubisoft is releasing a series of videos that help to showcase exactly what the game will be all about. The second released video details information on the characters and setting. NPCs will include an ex-army survivalist, a member of a secret society tasked with ending the zombie apocalypse, and a scientist holed up beneath Buckingham Palace looking for the ultimate cure for the plague. The setting is a faithful recreation of modern-day London, as designers spent a great deal of time exploring not only the well-known sites throughout the city, but the diverse nooks and crannies that make London a fascinating place in reality, and a terrifying one in which to experience the apocalypse. Players will explore back alleys as well as major landmarks, and fight zombified versions of everything from chavs to beefeaters.

An element that distinguishes ZombiU from other zombie survival horror games is that the player’s character can permanently die, whereupon the player will immediately take on the role of another survivor. This means that players will not only get to hunt down the zombie that killed them, but will also get to hunt down their previous self in zombie form, put it out of its misery, and get their stuff back. With online multiplayer capabilities, this may also mean racing your friends to your scene of (un)death so they don’t steal your equipment, even if they say they’re just keeping it safe for you and will totally give it all back when you find them. The next video in the series will likely detail many of the mechanics of the game, giving us some more insight on how they expect to further separate ZombiU from the other games in the genre.

ZombiU is developed by Ubisoft’s Montpellier studio, which has previously developed games such as Rayman Origins, Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, and From Dust. It is scheduled as a launch title with the Wii U on November 18, 2012, and will be exclusive to that platform. It is available for pre-order from GameStop, Amazon, Best Buy, and Target.

Thomas Anderson

Thomas spends most of his day reading and complaining about people he sees on the Internet. He will gladly lecture you on useless trivia related to history, the English language, and Science Fiction. He considers himself Knoxville’s premier Discworld scholar.
Thomas also reviews the cheapest novels he can find at his blog, Schlock Value.